With comprehensive financial data from Bureau van Dijk and gridded weather data from E-OBS, we estimate the impact of temperature shocks on small and micro firm performance across Europe. Our study contributes to the limited economic climate literature outside the US market and is the first...

We investigate the impact of escalating temperature and heavy rainfall on the default probability of small and micro firms (SMiEs) in six European countries from 2005 to 2014. Our findings reveal that a one standard deviation increase (2.56°C) in the yearly mean temperature amplifies a firm’s...

What were the policies that created one of the world's largest financial and economic crisis (as a percent of GDP) in Lebanon in the early 2020s? An artificially strong currency peg created a consumption boom financed by government debt and international capital flows/remittances, exposing both...

We investigate the impact of deregulation-induced banking competition on corporate credit risk. Although banking competition does not, on average, affect corporate bankruptcy rates, we find that it causes corporate bankruptcies to increase significantly for high-leverage firms. This effect lasts...

We construct empirical measures of U.S. business-cycle activity based on media mentions of the word “recession” in financial newspapers. The MRIs (media recession indicators) are useful predictors of U.S. economic activity and stock returns, both in-sample and out-of-sample. Moreover, they...

We propose a new measure of firm-level climate regulatory exposure based on 10-K filings. Using the 2016 Trump election as an exogenous shock to perceived climate regulatory risks, we identify a positive effect on stock returns for firms with higher climate regulatory exposures; they experience...

We investigate the impact of banking competition on corporate credit risk. Although banking competition does not, on average, affect corporate bankruptcy rates, we find that it causes corporate bankruptcies to increase significantly for high-leverage firms. This effect lasts up to eight years...

We construct simple indices based on newspaper mentions of the word ``recession'' and show they are useful coincident and leading indicators of U.S. economic activity. These indices compare favourably, both in-sample and out-of-sample, with other business-cycle predictors. Importantly,...

We investigate how shocks to the reputation of credit rating agencies and the subsequent introduction of stricter regulation affect investors’ reaction to rating signals. We focus on three major episodes of reputational distress: the Enron/WorldCom scandals, the subprime crisis and the lawsuit...

We provide evidence of excess comovement in the credit default swap (CDS) market following inclusions to and exclusions from investment grade and high yield CDX indices during the 2003–2016 period. We find that when a name joins an index, its return tends to covary more with the returns of...